During a week when most college students are focused on barreling through their last final and heading home for a holiday break, fourth-year landscape architecture students were spending an unseasonably warm December day building a shade structure for preschoolers.

Learning environments are constantly evolving to stay in stride with the world around us. The factors that influence how and where we choose to educate our future generation are many. With the pace of the world’s technological innovation, and the increasing level of convenience and distraction it provides, there is a realistic concern that people, kids especially, risk losing a tangible connection and respect for the natural world. As a landscape architect, being asked to shape an educational environment, the first responsibility is to create a healthy, safe and inspirational setting. Secondly, it is an opportunity to bring the natural world out of the background, and back into focus in a fun and inspiring way.

Design Intelligence asked numerous firms “In your firm’s hiring experience in the past five years, which schools are best preparing students for success in the profession?” and the Top 5 for Undergraduate and Graduate schools are: